This soup is unbelievably good! Thick and hearty with heaps of lentils and big chunks of potato. Just the right amount of spice, a hint of sourness from the lime/lemon and then the freshness of the coriander (cilantro) – yum. Just writing about it makes me fall a little bit more in love with this soup!
So, so easy to make. Everything goes in one pot and ½ hour later you are dishing up a bowl of soup with so much flavour that it is hard to believe it was so simple to make.
The most important part of making this soup is cooking the spices. Make sure that you cook them in the olive oil for long enough that they become fragrant and you can really smell them. I made the mistake once of rushing through this step and the soup was quite bland and the spices had a powdery kind of taste. It only takes a couple of minutes but makes all the difference.
If you serve the soup as soon as it is ready, there will be quite bit of liquid in the dish. If you leave it a few hours or overnight, most of the liquid disappears. I’m guessing it soaks into the potatoes. This is not a bad thing; it just becomes a thicker soup. As good as the soup tastes when it is first cooked, it is even better the next day.
You can freeze this soup but personally I can’t stop eating it and my good intentions of freezing some for another day never gets fully realised.
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic - crushed
- 1 onion - finely chopped
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
- 2 tsp cumin seeds - crushed in mortar and pestle
- 1 red chilli - seeds removed and finely chopped
- 3 large potatoes (approx.. 800g / 1.7 pounds - peeled and chopped into approx. 2cm cubes (½ inch)
- 2 large ripe tomatoes diced (or a punnet of cherry tomatoes cut into 4)
- 1 cup green lentils
- 1.25 litres vegan chicken stock (5 cups)
- 1 tsp sea salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- 1 cup coriander (cilantro)
- 1 lime – juiced
- Heat olive oil in a large pot (heavy based if possible) on medium heat. When oil is hot, add spices and cook for a couple of minutes until the spices become fragrant. This step is very important in getting great flavour into the soup.
- Add onion, garlic and chilli and cook until soft and onion is translucent
- Add potatoes and stir through until coated with spices. Cook for 1 minute.
- Add lentils, tomatoes, salt & pepper and then stock. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to simmer. Cover with lid slightly askew so some steam can escape.
- Cook for about 30 minutes. Once the potatoes are tender, remove from heat. Taste and add more salt if required. Stir through chopped coriander and serve with a squeeze of lime (or lemon) juice.
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